Badge of tenacity HAS no bonus armor, it has a flat 308 armor on it. Bonus armor is a green stat on armor that adds +150 armor on top of the armor that would already be on that item. ( I believe that number is from elitiest jerks, gear point value caluclations )

The iron band of the unbreakable has no bonus armor on it and is still +170 armor, its just not green BONUS armor.

If that is the case, then the bonus armor on trinkets ( max 300 ) rings ( max 300 ) neck and cloak ( max 300 ) is only 900, not the 1438 you calculate, and both the trinkets are flat armor, that adds 300 more. So you SHOULD be losing the weapon( 500), rings (300 ) and cloak ( 150 ) or 950 armor. but the rest would be multiplied back in. so with your numbers, 1938 – 950 = 988. That 988 would then be applied to the multiplier for dire bear form, taking you back up to 3655 armor ( not including thick hide )

(That being said, its also not entirely out of the realm of possibility that GC misspoke/typed, and misused the term bonus armor )

That still hurts, but it can be worked around. Bears will still gear for armor, But now an item wont be specifically BEAR TANK items becuase of a green armor figure on that ring or cloak. I think THAT is what they are going for. They spent all that time stripping the bonus armor off leather items, so that bears would not feel obligated to take it( and so we wouldnt hit the armor cap “too soon” )But bears STILL stacked armor bonuses, over other stats. They dont want to hurt the other tanks by stripping the bonus armor off rings, cloaks, etc, so they are tuning our spec so that we cant use it. I think the plan is to take thought out of the gear design process so that all tank gear will be rolled on by all tank classes, and not be pigeonholed to a specific class, like it was before. ( feral attack power anyone? ) This would prevent specific classes running the same instance over and over and over again for a single drop, ( suneater anyone? ) for that one upgrade thats useful, but could run multiple instances, to get drops that are generally good for anyone.

They keep talking like the stats we NEED to stack now are attack power, haste, and crit. But i have yet to see a bear comment anywhere from beta that that is what they want. We are STILL stacking armor, stamina and agility. And oddly, we are not having any difficulties tanking in that gear. Hell, there is a multi page debate now about how, once again, PVP gear is the best gear to tank in over the Tier 7 druid set. They throw ominous threats in the forums about how bears are going to want to stack threat stats to tank. To compensate for that, blizz is making that gear worthless to us, to try and steer us back to thier vision of “fun bear tanking”

I find it particularly amusing that they want to reduce the armor bonus on weapons so it no longer adds to our tank stats. The vast, VAST, like 99/100 tank weapons in the game with armor on them are FERAL ***KING weapons. With feral stats like FERAL ATTACK POWER. If they dont want the armor to count for our mitigation, thats fine, but turning a stat USELESS on one of the FEW weapons designd for us, well, all I can say is FU blizzard. You had better not leave that stat there, make it useless, and leave item points spent on it or you are gonna have some seriously pissed off ferals of ALL shapes in the game. Perhaps “amusing” was the wrong choice of words😉

]]>By: Buxtonhttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42999
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:27:41 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42999Ghostcrawler has previously posted that they will keep all tanks balanced, even if it means adding parry to bears.

Given that they can’t give us 690% armour without arenas becoming drowning vortexes of QQ and that dodge suffers diminishing returns above ~50%, this might yet come to pass. In which case those rings with armour, parry & def will still be good rings to all tanks. Me, I’m rolling on them all until I know better. And the rogue pieces too. And the caster items in case they screw us over and I need to respec…just kidding, honest!

]]>By: Cosmicllamahttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42998
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:20:30 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42998I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here by analyzing Armor as the only mitigation stat. Ghostcrawler himself has chastised druids for overvaluing armor as a the sole be all and end all tanking stat above all others.

His words were “net mitigation”, not “net armor”. A slight increase to Thick Hide would net us some of the difference, but there are a lot of things Blizzard can do to achieve this claim.

For instance:
– boost dodge provided by talents (Feral Swiftness)
– boost Protector of the Pact to increase mitigation directly
– alter the amount of armor/dodge received from agility
– factor strength into some of the tanking equations

Basically, we aren’t going to be seeing high armor values anymore. An equally geared warrior will have the same armor as a bear druid, the difference will come in the alternate mitigation factors. Warriors and Paladins get shield blocking and parrying. A difference will need to be equalized here for Druids (and to a lesser extent, Death Knights). I forsee that Druids will either get parry, or our dodge will be going up dramatically.

]]>By: Clapushttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42997
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:16:37 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42997My druid seems squishier(is that a word). I worked so very hard to aquire my Earthwarden and now it is just another weapon.
OK, I’m over it. Lets get on to level 80 and see what Northrend has to offer.

]]>By: SuxToBUhttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42996
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:46:08 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42996I got half way through the comments & it’s time for bed, so I’ll apologise if this has been said:
Perhaps they’ll give us shield & block *shudder*
Make us stand in Grizzly Bear form with sword & board.
Make all the tanks exactly the same.

No thanks.

ok, I went further than “out there”, I went “beyond”, sorry. (Did I mention it’s late & I’m tired?)

]]>By: Jkonghttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42995
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:37:45 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42995Long time reader, I can’t remember if I ever commented before. First and foremost, thanks for the wonderful website you have put up and continue to maintain at your own cost, it serves us bear community well – let me just say I started my feral druid by following most of the advice on your blog. Mage is my first char, but druid is my true love.

just wanted to let know that I share exactly the same sentiments of all serious feral tanking bear loving community.

I spent 900g on Badge of Tenacity, badges and badges on tameless breeches, embrace of the everlasting, ring of the stalwalk defender, etc. Do I feel screwed by Blizzard, xxxxing hxxx yes.

From 370 to 690 will not get my vote, I reckon it will just tip the balance that much over and hard to juggle without insanely amount of work.

Here’s an idea, have parry rating work for bear .. lol… a have two big fat solid hard paws, we can use it to parry stuff yeah? Give us a talent call Harden Paws or some thing, so we can parry and everytime we parry, we generate rage…

I didn’t compare Feral Druids to Ret pallys, I compared the current bouncing of hotfixes that the Devs are implementing trying to properly balance Ret Pallies without going too far in the nerf direction, a very difficult task, with the number of hotfixes and corrections I expect Feral Druids can someday expect to see when armor adjustments go into play, based on what I feel will be a smiliar attempt to hit a figure, through trial and error, without overly buffing or nerfing the tanking.

But thank you very much for taking your misinterpretation as a launching point for QQing about Paladins with bad attitudes. Appreciate it.

Yes, I know that sounds snarky. But I don’t know you, just your comment, and come on, is this even remotely the place for that comment? You may be a great person, but there are abundant locations to QQ about Paladin attitudes. I respectfully submit that a Feral Druid blog article about armor ain’t it.

]]>By: Ribeyehttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42993
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:23:35 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42993Personally, I don’t think that this is a great idea – concentrating all of the multiplied armor over fewer items means more potential for the entire equation to become volatile. When only a few factors are determining the ultimate number, it increases the odds of the druid winding up either woefully underarmored, or drastically overpowered with only a few changes to gear. Allowing the multiplier for armor from non-leather pieces creates a smoother curve; besides, any serious raid tank is already stacking those trinkets and rings anyhow. Why open the door for undergeared players to take the spotlight? Learn your skills, pay your dues, and you can fill those slots with all of the items that you’ll need for maximum mitigation. It really wasn’t that hard before, and I don’t know why the driving desire to dumb it down for everyone should impact the feral spec so drastically.

]]>By: FaceTankingForFunAndProfithttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42992
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:12:19 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42992I think this problem is going to fall in to the category of “too hard to solve without majorly breaking something”. I think they are either going to have to back off on this decision or …. I wonder if this could force them to give us some form of parry/block mechanic to make us on par with other tanks.

Either way I would hate to go from having the most armor of the tanks to by far the least. Going from having 35k armor not long ago to having 23k armor (what I have currently due to the recent nerf) in BC to wearing the same equipment and having only 14k armor in LK (if the 9k or so bear armor nerf for rings/trinkets etc occurs). It just seems so unnatural.

]]>By: Tararianhttps://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/comment-page-1/#comment-42991
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:08:23 +0000http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/05/speculations-on-armor-balancing/#comment-42991I like a bit of contention – keeps things interesting – but dont compare ferals with ret pallies. Ret pallies were decimating BGs for a couple of weeks, causing serverwide misery. Their class has not been spoiled, it has been corrected to make the game fair. The ones complaining the hardest refuse to admit how deeply broken their class was before the adjustments. If you’re overpowerd, your class is broken. Not many forum posters cared enough about the game to admit it (for obvious unsophisticated reasons)

Also Blizzard are dealing with a LOT more factors when designing classes than even the jerkiest of elistists could get close to. Some of the qqer’s arguments in all the class forums are painfully oversimplistic.